Inside Video Game Music | The podcast that gives you a behind the scenes look into your favorite video game music - with host Tom Snively

About This Show

Show Info:
“Inside Video Game Music” gives you a behind the scenes look into your favorite video game music. On this podcast I talk with game composers about their background, their composing process, and how their music fits into the game. My goal is to learn, and to share knowledge with a community of game players, creators, and any who are passionate about video games and their music.

Most Recent Episode

010 IVGM – A Shell In The Pit, Narwhal (Tower): Rogue Legacy

Dec 5 14
·
46 minutes

In this episode, I talk with Vancouver composer/sound designer Gordon McGladdery, also known as A Shell In The Pit, about his song Narwhal (Tower) from the Rogue Legacy soundtrack.
In my interview with Gordon McGladdery, we cover the following:
His musical background, including learning sound design at the Vancouver Film School. He spends about half his time on sound design and half on music
Gordon writes music for Destin Sandlin on the YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay
He likes LA Scoring Strings (LASS) for strings, the Cine- libraries like CineHarp and Kontakt for percussion
Rogue Legacy is a genealogical Rogue-lite where you play as a series of knights. Narwhal plays and loops when you are in the tower. Gordon talked about techniques for making looping songs now sound repetitive
We go through the form. In the "A" section, Gordon layers a lot of guitar tracks, including left- and right-channel parts making the guitars sound wide.
The "B" section uses an old-school chip synthesizer sound. His method of making chip sounds has changed since working on this soundtrack
I then play Narwhal (Tower)
Gordon talked about the history of getting the music and then the sound design job for Rogue Legacy and bringing on Judson Cowan (who goes by Tettix) to write half the music.
He talked a little about sound design and how good sound effects have their own beats
Gordon talked about how the implementation of game audio is a lot easier when he can use the middleware tools for dynamic mixing and effects processing.
He is the co-host of the podcast Beards, Cats And Indie Game Audio with Matthew Marteinsson
Some of Gordon's favorite games are Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Long Dark, and going back Super Mario Bros, the Hitman franchise and the Mass Effect franchise
You can find Gordon McGladdery at ashellinthepit.com or on Twitter @AShellinthePit.
Is there a game composer you’d like to hear from? Let me know and I will reach out to them for an interview. Email tom@insidevgm.com or tweet at me on Twitter @TomSnively.
If you are or know a game developer that needs music or sounds for the game, I would love to help. Email tom@insidevgm.com or tweet at me on Twitter @TomSnively.
You can hear my album Major 7ths and Minor 9ths on Bandcamp. You can stream it for free or download it for "pay what you want." You can try my game Match Em and Molecular Music Box by finding the links on tomsnively.com/cre